IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jjrfmx/v12y2019i4p190-d298216.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Bootstrapping the Early Exercise Boundary in the Least-Squares Monte Carlo Method

Author

Listed:
  • Pascal Létourneau

    (Department of Finance and Business Law, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Whitewater, WI 53190, USA)

  • Lars Stentoft

    (Department of Economics and Department of Statistical and Actuarial Sciences, University of Western Ontario, London, ON N6A 5C2, Canada)

Abstract

This paper proposes an innovative algorithm that significantly improves on the approximation of the optimal early exercise boundary obtained with simulation based methods for American option pricing. The method works by exploiting and leveraging the information in multiple cross-sectional regressions to the fullest by averaging the individually obtained estimates at each early exercise step, starting from just before maturity, in the backwards induction algorithm. With this method, less errors are accumulated, and as a result of this, the price estimate is essentially unbiased even for long maturity options. Numerical results demonstrate the improvements from our method and show that these are robust to the choice of simulation setup, the characteristics of the option, and the dimensionality of the problem. Finally, because our method naturally disassociates the estimation of the optimal early exercise boundary from the pricing of the option, significant efficiency gains can be obtained by using less simulated paths and repetitions to estimate the optimal early exercise boundary than with the regular method.

Suggested Citation

  • Pascal Létourneau & Lars Stentoft, 2019. "Bootstrapping the Early Exercise Boundary in the Least-Squares Monte Carlo Method," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-21, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jjrfmx:v:12:y:2019:i:4:p:190-:d:298216
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1911-8074/12/4/190/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1911-8074/12/4/190/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carriere, Jacques F., 1996. "Valuation of the early-exercise price for options using simulations and nonparametric regression," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 19-30, December.
    2. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4273 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Ibáñez, Alfredo & Zapatero, Fernando, 2004. "Monte Carlo Valuation of American Options through Computation of the Optimal Exercise Frontier," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(2), pages 253-275, June.
    4. Boyer, M. Martin & Stentoft, Lars, 2013. "If we can simulate it, we can insure it: An application to longevity risk management," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 35-45.
    5. Pascal L�tourneau & Lars Stentoft, 2014. "Refining the least squares Monte Carlo method by imposing structure," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(3), pages 495-507, March.
    6. Longstaff, Francis A & Schwartz, Eduardo S, 2001. "Valuing American Options by Simulation: A Simple Least-Squares Approach," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt43n1k4jb, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
    7. Andrea Gamba & Nicola Fusari, 2009. "Valuing Modularity as a Real Option," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(11), pages 1877-1896, November.
    8. Fabozzi, Frank J. & Paletta, Tommaso & Tunaru, Radu, 2017. "An improved least squares Monte Carlo valuation method based on heteroscedasticity," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 263(2), pages 698-706.
    9. Gabriel J Power & Charli D. Tandja M. & Josée Bastien & Philippe Grégoire, 2015. "Measuring infrastructure investment option value," Journal of Risk Finance, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 16(1), pages 49-72, January.
    10. Longstaff, Francis A & Schwartz, Eduardo S, 2001. "Valuing American Options by Simulation: A Simple Least-Squares Approach," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(1), pages 113-147.
    11. Manuel Moreno & Javier Navas, 2003. "On the Robustness of Least-Squares Monte Carlo (LSM) for Pricing American Derivatives," Review of Derivatives Research, Springer, vol. 6(2), pages 107-128, May.
    12. Jin‐Chuan Duan, 1995. "The Garch Option Pricing Model," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(1), pages 13-32, January.
    13. Kang, Sang Baum & Létourneau, Pascal, 2016. "Investors’ reaction to the government credibility problem: A real option analysis of emission permit policy risk," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 96-107.
    14. Broadie, Mark & Glasserman, Paul, 1997. "Pricing American-style securities using simulation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 21(8-9), pages 1323-1352, June.
    15. Denis Belomestny, 2011. "Pricing Bermudan options by nonparametric regression: optimal rates of convergence for lower estimates," Finance and Stochastics, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 655-683, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lars Stentoft, 2020. "Computational Finance," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-4, July.
    2. Reesor, R. Mark & Stentoft, Lars & Zhu, Xiaotian, 2024. "A critical analysis of the Weighted Least Squares Monte Carlo method for pricing American options," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    3. Chinonso Nwankwo & Nneka Umeorah & Tony Ware & Weizhong Dai, 2024. "Deep Learning and American Options via Free Boundary Framework," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 64(2), pages 979-1022, August.
    4. Chinonso Nwankwo & Nneka Umeorah & Tony Ware & Weizhong Dai, 2022. "Deep learning and American options via free boundary framework," Papers 2211.11803, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2022.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lars Stentoft, 2013. "American option pricing using simulation with an application to the GARCH model," Chapters, in: Adrian R. Bell & Chris Brooks & Marcel Prokopczuk (ed.), Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Empirical Finance, chapter 5, pages 114-147, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Fabozzi, Frank J. & Paletta, Tommaso & Tunaru, Radu, 2017. "An improved least squares Monte Carlo valuation method based on heteroscedasticity," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 263(2), pages 698-706.
    3. Wei, Wei & Zhu, Dan, 2022. "Generic improvements to least squares monte carlo methods with applications to optimal stopping problems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 298(3), pages 1132-1144.
    4. Jeechul Woo & Chenru Liu & Jaehyuk Choi, 2024. "Leave‐one‐out least squares Monte Carlo algorithm for pricing Bermudan options," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(8), pages 1404-1428, August.
    5. Stentoft, Lars, 2005. "Pricing American options when the underlying asset follows GARCH processes," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 576-611, September.
    6. Lars Stentoft, 2004. "Convergence of the Least Squares Monte Carlo Approach to American Option Valuation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(9), pages 1193-1203, September.
    7. Ammann, Manuel & Kind, Axel & Wilde, Christian, 2008. "Simulation-based pricing of convertible bonds," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 310-331, March.
    8. Reesor, R. Mark & Stentoft, Lars & Zhu, Xiaotian, 2024. "A critical analysis of the Weighted Least Squares Monte Carlo method for pricing American options," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    9. Calypso Herrera & Louis Paulot, 2014. "Parallel American Monte Carlo," Papers 1404.1180, arXiv.org.
    10. M. Martin Boyer & Lars Stentoft, 2017. "Yes We Can (Price Derivatives on Survivor Indices)," Risk Management and Insurance Review, American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 20(1), pages 37-62, March.
    11. Zhongkai Liu & Tao Pang, 2016. "An efficient grid lattice algorithm for pricing American-style options," International Journal of Financial Markets and Derivatives, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 5(1), pages 36-55.
    12. Ruimeng Hu, 2019. "Deep Learning for Ranking Response Surfaces with Applications to Optimal Stopping Problems," Papers 1901.03478, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2020.
    13. Mark Broadie & Jerome B. Detemple, 2004. "ANNIVERSARY ARTICLE: Option Pricing: Valuation Models and Applications," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(9), pages 1145-1177, September.
    14. Sebastian Becker & Patrick Cheridito & Arnulf Jentzen & Timo Welti, 2019. "Solving high-dimensional optimal stopping problems using deep learning," Papers 1908.01602, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2021.
    15. repec:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2006-051 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Denis Belomestny & Grigori Milstein & Vladimir Spokoiny, 2009. "Regression methods in pricing American and Bermudan options using consumption processes," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(3), pages 315-327.
    17. Li, Chenxu & Ye, Yongxin, 2019. "Pricing and Exercising American Options: an Asymptotic Expansion Approach," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 1-1.
    18. Garcia, Diego, 2003. "Convergence and Biases of Monte Carlo estimates of American option prices using a parametric exercise rule," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 27(10), pages 1855-1879, August.
    19. A. -S. Chen & P. -F. Shen, 2003. "Computational complexity analysis of least-squares Monte Carlo (LSM) for pricing US derivatives," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(4), pages 223-229.
    20. Ascione, Giacomo & Mehrdoust, Farshid & Orlando, Giuseppe & Samimi, Oldouz, 2023. "Foreign Exchange Options on Heston-CIR Model Under Lévy Process Framework," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 446(C).
    21. Nelson Areal & Artur Rodrigues & Manuel Armada, 2008. "On improving the least squares Monte Carlo option valuation method," Review of Derivatives Research, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 119-151, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jjrfmx:v:12:y:2019:i:4:p:190-:d:298216. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.